concert review: Los Angeles Philharmonic

[calimac]

I played hooky from Loscon long enough to dart downtown in a rented car, dine on mole poblano at my favorite Olvera Street restaurant, and trudge uphill to Disney Hall for a concert. It wasn't my choice of program out of the LA Phil's selections this season; it was what was on when I was there anyway, but it was congenial enough to attract my patronage, even at their severe ticket prices. Esa-Pekka Salonen, the music director emeritus, returned to lead this concert. He certainly does like to conduct with only one hand at a time, doesn't he?

The LA Times reviewer suggested that "Hindemith is box office death in America," and maybe he is, because there were a lot of empty seats in the small auditorium, but his Symphonic Metamorphosis is a favorite of mine and what I was eager to hear. Salonen led a light, fleeting performance, with plenty of color and energy, but holding back on the intensity which makes Blomstedt's San Francisco recording so special.

That was one half of the concert, a little short. The other half, also perhaps a little short, consisted of some "bleeding chunks" of Wagner operas, some of them joined by bass-baritone Bryn Terfel. The selections and order were craftily chosen, as both Hans Sachs's monologue from Meistersinger and Wotan's farewell to Brünnhilde from Walküre begin with recollections of leitmotifs prominent in the orchestral selections we heard before. Dazzle without awe was again the motto of the conducting. Salonen really likes to mellow out in Wagner's more reflective moments, at the expense of creating a slightly sea-sick feeling when he powers up again.

As for Terfel's singing, I could hardly judge it, because I was behind him. This was irksome. I'd thought about going for the cheap (relatively) seats in the section directly behind the orchestra, but decided that would make no sense for a vocal concert (a judgment not shared by others: it was one of the fullest sections in the hall), and went for the side terrace instead, where at least I thought I'd have a side view of the singer. I didn't realize how far the side terrace extends behind the front of the stage, nor that my seat was at the far end. The orchestral acoustics here were kind of dampened and wobbly. And for this I paid a higher price. The SF Sym wouldn't dare charge more than $30 for a seat like this. The LA Phil dared to charge considerably higher than that.

Nevertheless, through the muffled sound emerging from the back of Bryn's head, I could detect the mixed power and tenderness he brought to his roles, with a particularly fine line in sad determination when Wotan turns from Brünnhilde to order Loge to fire up the gas range.

Despite the price and the location, I had a good time, and got back in time to wander the party halls at Loscon a bit before retiring early, and getting up even earlier, sufficiently early to play Peg Campbell to John Hertz's Isaac Asimov for the last hour or so of John's all-night room party.

Comments

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Side terrace seats, some of which are definitely behind the soloist, are $71 at SFS this season.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Huh. But the SF Symphony does charge only $30-35 for much better high front side seats that aren't behind anything. And only $15 for the bench seats behind the orchestra, whereas the LA Phil charges over $50 for those, and that's the cheapest they've got. I'd have thought that since side terrace seats are between the $15 and $35 sections and are between them aesthetically as well, they'd charge an intermediate price. So SF is less prohibitive, just more inconsistent.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I'm not able to visualize where the "high front side" seats are - which section of Davies do you mean? But yeah, I take your point about the generally high prices at WDCH.

I'm looking at the WDCH seating chart right now, in fact; it's here (http://www.laphil.com/tickets/seating-chart.cfm). I think you must have been in the Terrace East or Terrace West? I've been in Orchestra East, but in pretty good reviewer seats, and in either Terrace or Balcony (cannot recall which) and the sound was amazingly transparent in all cases.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

The Davies section I'm referring to is the far sides of the 2nd tier.

At Disney I was in Terrace East, the furthest-in seat in the entire section. I couldn't figure out how to make the online ticket service offer me anything else. (Davies' online ticket-ordering is a lot clearer.) The only other time I've been to an orchestral concert at Disney, I was in the nose-bleed balcony, where the sound was a bit distant but excellently balanced.

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

I sat in the far sides of the 2nd tier at Davies once - never again. I swear I could watch the music blowing past me 30 feett away in the center of the hall. It was a very strange sensation. Osmo Vanska was conducting; program included a Nielsen symphony.

Oh, the ticket-ordering problems at WDCH. I had to check to remind myself: for some reason, they outsource ticket sales to Ticketmaster instead of springing for Tessitura, which is used by nearly every other major musical organization in the country. Not that Tessitura always makes it easier. LA Opera uses Tessi but did not bother with the choose-your-own-seat module, so you have to phone them with a seating chart in front of you to make sure you get seats in, say, the center instead of the side of the correct section.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I love that spot in Davies, simply love it. There's nowhere else I'd rather sit, except in the center terrace directly behind the brass during a brass spectacular like a Bruckner symphony or The Pines of Rome.